Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday December 15, 2010 @05:59PM
from the dream-fuel dept.

coondoggie writes "This one sounds a bit like really wishful thinking. The US Department of Energy today announced $30 million for research projects that would develop advanced biofuels that could replace gasoline or diesel without requiring special upgrades or changes to the vehicle or fueling infrastructure. The $30 million would be spent over the next four years to support as many as five 'traditionally high-risk biofuels projects,' such as converting biomass into biofuels and bioproducts to be eventually used for hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals."

err.. 4 years.. still $7.5/year isn't exactly a ton of money. That being said, I think the powers that be recognize that fossil fuels and similar power sources are inherintly a dead end. Creating new fuels is an energy intensive process, effectivly making the new fuel a one-time use battery. And depending on the process used to create it, generally not a very efficient one.

A bunch better way to spend money is developing new battery tech and at looking at utilizing solar energy to power them. That, or get ov

A bunch better way to spend money is developing new battery tech and at looking at utilizing solar energy to power them. That, or get over the stigma against nuclear tech and utilize small personal reactors for energy...

Thing is, billions are already being spent on developing battery and solar tech. $30M is a drop in the bucket, but could possibly point to a way to make things like lubricating oil, aviation fuel, etc... from biological sources economically.

Unfortuantly, hydrochemicals still beat batteries like a red headed stepchild when it comes to energy density, and will for the forseeable future. So in applications where you NEED that density, demand isn't going away. Examples I can think of - airplanes, long haul

I think you're giving them way too much credit here. The clowns don't even know that a diesel compatible oil is shockingly easy, its just that American growing technology requires about 2 gallons of diesel equivalent to grow 1 gallon of biodiesel equivalent. On the other hand, "growing your own gasoline" is a huge problem. Purified toluene and benzene are not really biocompatible, you're not going to grow that stuff and refine it at any reasonable efficiency.

OMG, what about using a beta-volatic cell utilizing a lightweight isotope that decays via beta emission into a stable element.... Something like say Sulfur 35. Use the small reactory to continually recharge the battery packs in an electric car like a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt....

Beta Emitters = No pesky neutrons, Gamma rays of alpha particles...

The "reactor" actually more like a batter cell type design, can be shielded with the same kind of tin foil bat shit insane people use to cover their heads for crying out loud.

can be shielded with the same kind of tin foil bat shit insane people use to cover their heads for crying out loud.

Most bat-shit insane people I've seen wearing foil hats wear ones made from aluminum. Which is kind of ironic, given that they suppose themselves to be in the enlightened minority, but are unaware that aluminum foil does not offer the same protective properties against telepathic rays as tin. It does, however, protect against beta rays, but it's need to be much thicker than aluminum foil (ord

Not quite correct: most gamma ray sources are in fact beta emitters that decay into excited states of the daughter nucleus, which then decays via gamma emission.

There are exceptions: 35S, which you mention, decays entirely to the ground state of 35Cl.

There are still problems, though: bremmstralung radiation from the stopping electrons, modest (126 day) lifetime and long biological half-life (~45 days). The average decay energy is only 49 keV (endpoint is 167 keV) so to generate a watt assuming 100% conve

Right. In other news: The DoD is currently bitching that they might be losing something like $10 billion in funding next year. Of course, even that is a just a small fraction of DoD's full money allocations.

Possibly high risk because you car explodes, or high risk because if it comes within skin contact, you become a mutant, but not a cool X-Men type of mutant. Like the Mutant whose special power is that one of their arms is on their back

"Like the Mutant whose special power is that one of their arms is on their back"

That could have its uses: it would make wiping ones ass easier.

Well, that depends on which way the elbow bends, what part of the back the arm is attached to, and whether there's a shoulder joint, doesn't it?

I mean, sure, it could make wiping your ass easier if the arm has a shoulder joint right in the middle of your back, and the elbow bends toward the ass. What if it bends towards the head? I guess that's a bad example,

High risk or what used to be called "basic research". These are project that may work or provide useful insight for down the road. Chances are they may not lead to some kind of "success" in the commercial world. When companies fund research and development it usually evaluates projects based on the likely hood they'll be able to produce something that is commercially viable and they can break even or profit from the work. We really haven't seen a lot of basic research labs where companies throw money into R&D and see what happens. That's the way it used to work back in the day with places like Bell Labs and even Xerox. Today this is usually done at research universities.

We really haven't seen a lot of basic research labs where companies throw money into R&D and see what happens. That's the way it used to work back in the day with places like Bell Labs and even Xerox. Today this is usually done at research universities.

Why do your own research when you can get government to throw a bunch of money at it? The US, for example, throws billions of dollars every year at basic research. Where's the incentive for me to do basic research on my own dime?

I see this as one of the big social drivers for destroying scientific progress in the world (not just in the US). Currently, in a lot of fields the only gain from genuine scientific inquiry is status. And that can be gamed too. I see in many decades the possibility of a huge publ

Then there's no such thing as basic research. Any useful research eventually leads to a monetary incentive.

There's so much wrong with your assertion that it's difficult to know where to begin... Basic research often leads to a monetary incentive, but generations after the research has been done... i.e. the monetary incentives don't come in to play for the person or entity doing the research, but to later entities who benefit from the knowledge gained from that research. Some basic research benefits societ

Some basic research benefits society as a whole without generating any financial rewards at all for the researcher.

That's just a market failure where the researcher isn't being adequately compensated for the research. You were claiming that basic research had no monetary incentive. This is not an example of that since there is a party, all of society, which has a monetary incentive.

There's so much wrong with your assertion that it's difficult to know where to begin... Basic research often leads to a monetary incentive, but generations after the research has been done... i.e. the monetary incentives don't come in to play for the person or entity doing the research, but to later entities who benefit from the knowledge gained from that research.

There is this myth that we can have scientific research with no value, monetary or otherwise, in the near future, but it will have tremendous payout at some future date. The only problem with this assertion is that it's not true. Sure, there might be some research somewhere where no near future value was present, but great future value was present, but no one has found it yet.

For example, electricity and magnetism eventually lead to computers and the foundation of the modern society. So sure, that's tremendous value creation centuries after the fact. But even in the days when people were first experimenting with electricity and magnetism, they were coming up with near future discoveries of monetary value. For example, lightning rods were an early discovery which led to the preservation of real estate from lightning caused damage. The discovery that Earth's magnetic fields were misaligned from true North (and by how much) was a great boon to commerce by sea, which was a huge deal in those days.

You can make similar monetary incentives for every branch of science (and related knowledge) at their infancy. Astronomy - navigation at sea, understanding time better. Chemistry - turning (or not as the case turned out) lead into gold, making new alloys. Biology - breeding better livestock, understanding and treating disease. Philosophy - helping us think more effectively (intangible, but near future monetary gain). Math - describing effectively models of how things work.

Sure the near future application may be far smaller than the eventual goals, but even of the people who claim to do science for science's sake, they routinely have ulterior motives for doing what they do.

And even at research universities, the proportion of basic research is being actively reduced.

This is partly because of reduced government funding for projects that do not produce tangible viable results, and partly because of the increasing partnership between public research universities and private for-profit enterprises.

We really haven't seen a lot of basic research labs where companies throw money into R&D and see what happens. That's the way it used to work back in the day with places like Bell Labs and even Xerox.

That's the "back in the good old days" version. The reality is that Bell Labs worked almost exclusively on research eventually intended to have commercial yield, any basic research was done in support of that goal.

How much do you want to bet that the benefactors of this funding turn out to be connected to some political party pretty tightly.

I'm wondering if this isn't actually some sort of payback. This isn't a lot of money to start something like this when there isn't really anything that specifically meets the stated criteria on the market right now.

High risk as in no chance of being profitable within the next quarter, or even the next year, may not even be profitable before you cache in your golden parachute and move on to the next corp to gut and sell.

Biofuels like Ethanol have a very high octane rating, so you can increase power output with really high compression ratios with superchargers and turbochargers. Supposedly these turbo gasohol vehicles are popular in Brazil, where they can actually grow and produce their cane sugar ethanol with a net positive energy output (whereas corn-based ethanol in the US costs more energy to make than you get from it in return... so it's really just an agricultural subsidy as well as a way to water down imported petroleum-based fuels and decreasing your gas mileage - FTW!)

Engine mods and upgrades are NOT fun. The reason is that it often costs upwards of $100,000 [gonaturalcng.com] to certify any conversion kit for a vehicle with the EPA. What this means is that all alternative fuel mods on post 1975 vehicles are a no-go. Unless the fuel can go in without conversion (like with biodiesel), then the costs are going to be too high to make it viable. This is why CNG is not our primary transportation fuel right now.

If one takes ethanol (or E85), this is a good solution -- less MPG, but better HP. Its downside is that oil needs to be changed more often because water dissolves in it, creating an acid. This is also why the service guide tells you to run a tank of pure unleaded every 3000-7000 miles.

However, here in the US, we don't have sugar cane whose by-product can be turned into booze for the car, and the effect of using corn means that food prices go higher since it is an either or unlike sugar cane -- corn goes t

Sugar beets have plenty of sugar, around 20% of the beet is sugar. And it grows perfectly in the north central USA, such as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Michigan, or farther south. The problem is that corn gets tons of subsidies from the government (corporate welfare for the Monsanto asshats) and beets do not. Beets will get you around 20% more fuel per acre than corn but costs more because of the subsidies on corn. Without the subsidies, it would likely be comparable or cheaper to use sugar beets. You a

With regards to the hypocrisy, the point is that if you had a smaller high-compression ratio engine turbocharged to 150hp, it would be more efficient than a bigger normal engine that was 150hp in the first place.

But since the goal of the research is to develop biofuels for normal engines, you'll just get decreased mileage without really being able to take advantage of any of the, well, advantages to using ethanol.

So far, just throwing extra fuel into engines has been (artificially) cheaper

To correct my earlier statement, while engines make more HP at high compressions, they do so by producing more NO2, so they pollute more. And I agree with the turbo comment. Actually, straight 6 engines are more balanced by design, no need to externally balanced. I'm shocked I haven't seen more implementation of them. A well designed I6 with a turbo can be made small enough to still be used in front wheel drive and have extra power on tap when needed, but that isn't what is "sexy".

heh, yeah... I remember looking for some I6-powered cars after reading about them... seems like BMWs and some Volvos are the most commonly available. Unfortunately, that seems to fit into the "nice car, but you'll pay more for maintenance" sort of thing:P

I like how I6 configuration is pretty typical for use as ginormous internal combustion engines, like in factories and large ships. But beyond that, the most efficient combustion engines seem to be the gas turbines... which are even more delicate and heav

Most of your serious diesel engines are also I6, from Ram (Dodge) trucks to rigs. Even the bigger V12's diesels are basically twin banked I6s. The old 240z engines, old land rovers (before they were pretty, back when they were tough), as well as many other more serious engines.

Part of the problem is how long they are, which is more of a problem in front wheel drive. By design, the engine should be lower maintenance, it is just the cars they put them in that are high maintenance. Having all your intake o

On a long term scale, what would be interesting is a way to pull CO2 directly from the air, mix it with water (best bet is desalinated so it does not interfere with water needs) and start making crude oil this way ready for refining and reuse. Nuclear power has enough density per square foot, so one could combine a nuke plant, a desalination plant, and a CO2 remover in one area, and get crude in quantities that are usable for fuel or for plastics. To boot, it would be a crude oil free of mercury, sulphur, o

Even worse, it may be going to 15% soon in a lot places. For older engines that don't have the ability to change timing for dealing with this, this will suck, not to mention the voided warranties of engines which are warranties to work with no more than 10% alcohol.

Even worse, it may be going to 15% soon in a lot places. For older engines that don't have the ability to change timing for dealing with this, this will suck, not to mention the voided warranties of engines which are warranties to work with no more than 10% alcohol.

Which older engines would those be?

Unless I'm missing something (which is very likely -- I'm by no means an expert in the field), the ignition systems common gas-powered cars can be split into two different categories: Those which use a distribu

Supposedly these turbo gasohol vehicles are popular in Brazil, where they can actually grow and produce their cane sugar ethanol with a net positive energy output (whereas corn-based ethanol in the US costs more energy to make than you get from it in return...

That's because Brazil can slash-and-burn rainforest and raise cane on the fertile soil. It's a great business plan so long as you can slash-and-burn more rainforest after the old fields become exhausted after a year or two. Massive government subsidi

Sure, you CAN run your flex fuel vehicle on E85, but doing so drops your fuel milage by 20%+. You wind up blowing through way more fuel to drive the vehicle like a gutless hog.

Ethanol engines can be incredibly efficient. All of our top fuel race cars are burning ethanol. But in order to get that efficiency they have to push much higher compression ratios. To change the compression ratio though, y

This sense of urgency makes me think that the US Govt is paying attention to the problem of Peak Oil. [wikipedia.org] This country will experience some serious pain when we hit the downside of that slope, and probably the world for that matter.

Well, I wouldn't call $30 million over 5 years "urgent". That's doughnut money to the Department of Defense, whose budget is 100,000 times more than that.

US domestic oil production peaked 40 years ago. We've been subject to nasty oil shocks ever since, as well as the unpleasant fact that many key oil exporters are avowed or tacit opponents of the US. We'd much rather be self-sufficient in oil, regardless of whether the rest of the world experiences Peak Oil or not.

The DoD has actually been somewhat more active than the government generally in alt-energy research.

Partially, I'd assume that this stems from the simple fact that, when your oil products have to be shipped to you through hostile territory, you are already experiencing the sorts of prices that peak oilers have in mind(never mind something really dramatic, like enemy infiltrators blowing a few gulf coast refineries just before starting a hot war...)

I know you're joking, but also recall that oil is fungible. If the Saudis were to cut off the US, we'd need to buy more from Canada, raising the price. If they cut off any US allies, it would raise the price further.

That happened during the 1970s oil shocks, and the US produced more of its own oil at the time.

The difference being that, in one case, they're buying a finished product, while in the other they're throwing money at something that may never pan out.

That's sorta like complaining that it costs millions of dollars to build a nuclear reactor, but your crazy neighbor swears he'll be able to build you a perpetual-motion machine - eventually - for only a $100 investment. Maybe the neighbor is worth investing in, on the off chance that he actually makes something useful, but it doesn't compare to buying some

Pros:1) Burns in gasoline engines without modification2) Can be transported in existing gas pipelines (does not emulsify water like ethanol does)3) Higher energy content per gallon than ethanol, only a little less than gasoline4) Can be produced in the same manner that ethanol is (ie, fermentation)

As well as the fact that it's currently expensive to manufacture and distill, with low yields.

Neither of this is necessarily impossible to overcome, but it's dishonest to claim that the only thing wrong with it is that it doesn't have a lobby. In fact, it DOES have a lobby: BP and Dupont have both been working on it.

Dealing with these issues might be a great use of some of that $30 million. But it's not a miracle cure.

Was lucky enough to do some work with butanol while in school (O-chem, with some manufacturing chemistry)
Apparently nowdays there's several fancy nickel catalysts that do the trick, but with relatively low yields
BUT, fiberous bed bioreactors are the trick for half decent yields...
I'm out of chem now, I stuck with my computer nerd roots and am in a server room right now, but it was readily apparent (back in the day) that butanol was the clear choice for ease of transition, octane rating, transportability, and it's emissions are 'supposed to be' cleaner than current gas offerings.
ANYWAY, go butanol go! Not quite the same octane ratings as ethanol, but it'll run on almost any vehicle with very little-if any- tuning

Since butanol can be produced (an on an industrial scale certainly would be) from farm raised biomass... One suspects it's just a wee bit more complex than that.

But, knee jerk blaming the corporations and lobbyists is easier than actually trying to understand the issues.

Yes, butanol can be produced from farm raised biomass, same as ethanol. But as far as air time and subsidies go, it's ethanol, all the time. Therefore the logical conclusion is that the butanol lobby, such as it is, isn't nearly as effective as the ethanol lobby. To the point of not existing.

Pros:1) Burns in gasoline engines without modification2) Can be transported in existing gas pipelines (does not emulsify water like ethanol does)3) Higher energy content per gallon than ethanol, only a little less than gasoline4) Can be produced in the same manner that ethanol is (ie, fermentation)

Cons:1) Does not have a farm lobby attached to it

Yeah, so it's probably not going to happen as long as Iowa's caucuses vote first for our presidents.

It makes sense to me that we should be developing technology to exploit the vast natural gas reserves we have here in the U.S. We're already familiar with CNG tech for automobiles plus its cleaner burning. Perhaps the government could subsidize CNG conversions for older automobiles and for gas stations.

Try running 200 million cars on natural gas and those reserves won't be so vast any more. We use it for 20% of our electricity, and it's already one of the most expensive sources of power, useful more for peak load than base load.

CNG vehicles are already subsidized in some cities for air quality reasons. It's ok for buses and local delivery vehicles, but it's a long way from being practical for long haul trucking and personal use.

100 year old Diesel technology is more helpful in our current situation than wasting money trying to conjure up new fuels from nothing. Here's a couple vehicles I have that provide a better solution:

1984 Mercedes 300SD Turbo (OM617): It will run on just about anything. All kinds of oils, both vegetable and petroleum, jet fuel, heck, you can even dump ATF in the tank (though I don't recommend it) and it will burn that.

1983 Chevrolet Suburban (Detroit Diesel/Allison 6.2): This will also run on just about anything. It has the engine that AM General picked to power the HMMWV. There are probably still lots of these 6.2s running around all corners of the earth powered by who knows what.

These vehicles are likely going to still be puttering around for a very, very long time. Rust will get them before the engines go. We need to be focusing on developing better engines so that we don't end up backed into a corner on fuel. If we truly have options on what we can power our vehicles with, we'll be in a much better position.

(Though I don't see why they don't make more diesel hybrids, instead of gas hybrids.)

Actual cost: Hybrids are already expensive. A diesel-powered hybrid would cost even more.

Perceived cost: Around here, at least, diesel typically costs 10-15% more per gallon than gasoline. (Yes, I know that it's still cheaper per unit of usable energy, but the folks buying hybrids realize this.)

Noise: A Prius is very quiet in all modes. A chattering diesel is not. (I personally don't find the modern TDI diesels to be

Nope. Atleast, not per mile driven. If you just light a gallon of gas and a gallon of diesel on fire, yeah, the diesel would probably be worse. But Diesels get on average ~30% better gas mileage then gas engines. So to get the same use out of the two fuels, you'd have to burn one gallon of gas and 2/3rds a gallon of Diesel.

As far as CO2 goes, Diesels are way better. But the trade off is that they generate more NOX. So you trade green house gases for smog.

Yay... $1.5 million per year for 4 years per project. I sure hope they're really promising because that's much time or money to do anything major like find a means to turn biomass into a gasoline substitute that would utilize all the current fuel line infrastructure.
Good luck, guys!

It was this nation's #1 cash crop for over 100 years. As such, 90% of the components for the first automobiles were made of it (and previous to prohibition of alcohol, most cars were fueled by it). Henry Ford grew acres of it, and envisioned that we'd literally be "GROWING CARS"... But unfortunately William Randolph Heart made his money from newspapers printed on paper made from wood pulp (one of the three textiles it would have displaced had it remained legal after the invention of the decordicator...the other two being oil, and cotton). A medium he used to demonize it, and stigmatize our nation to the point where to this day (80 years later) all most of us do is make stupid snarky comments at the mere suggestion of it's use as an alternative to oil. Due to this nation's ignorance of it, and our resulting dependence on it's competitors, most of civilization will most likely perish before it becomes legal again....I am of course talking about Industrial Hemp.

Think I'm lying? Rather than make stupid remarks about smoking it, try looking it up on Google or Youtube and enlighten yourself!!!

Its funny that Hearst and the US gubmint have been able to suppress this magical plant - yet no other country have discovered how wonderful the plant is. So you are saying that every other country on the plant is just stupid and the US is just oppressed?

If the microbe solution can be scaled, no country will need to burn anything down. There will be vast lakes with bacteria eat algae and convert it to fuel. The fuel will be skimmed of the surface of the lake and refined.

The lab microbe are quite specific in that each type produces 1 type of fuel.

The Oil Companies regularly pay more than that to bury the technology. Or the inventor...

eh... When the oil companies run out of oil, they can then sell us energy from all the patents they hold. We get to continue using energy and they get to continue making obscene amounts of cash. Sort of a win/win situation... at least until we run out of arable land to produce fuel with. We are all doomed in the end [youtube.com] anyway.

Remind me again, why we aren't using hemp instead of oil and corn? Oh right, something to do backdoor deals made to vilify hemp [wikipedia.org] back in the day. I guess this isn't the first time political agenda has come before the good of people.. and it sure won't be the last.

Because hemp fuel only seems a viable option if you're smoking a joint.

The big oil and gov are afraid of Hydrogen Too easy to make and too hard to control

I wouldn't have bothered responding to this old canard, especially from an AC, but my future son-in-law laid this on me during a (very) long road trip. He was convinced that hydrogen must be that Secret That Oil Companies Don't Want You To Know. After all, it comes from WATER, for crying out loud. You can drop a 9-volt battery and get hydrogen, for crying out loud... all we have to do is put that in a car and run it on water, right? Right?

*facepalm*

For those new to the laws of thermodynamics: Hydrogen is combined with Oxygen to form Water, yes. But it takes energy to get the menage-a-trois separated. And the energy required to liberate H2 from that codependent relationship is, by the laws of physics, no greater than the energy you'll get by combining it *back* with O.

My discussion partner said, "That's ok, we'll just have batteries to do the electrolysis." I gently suggested that if you're going to have enough batteries to generate enough electricity to generate enough hydrogen to run a car, you've got enough batteries to generate enough electricity to run a car -- without that lossy "generate hydrogen" step.

Energy and technology will not drive us to space. Profit will, regardless of the nut factor. If there is profit to be had there you'd be nuts NOT to go.

If someone figures out how to make a buck by shipping people there, then they will. It is that simple.

Satellites are insanely complex and expensive - yet they exist. Why? Because someone made a profit (for the most part) by putting them there and selling their services. All so people can talk to grandma, and watch porn on demand (among other things).

Except the cheapest ways of making hydrogen are from fossil fuels - natural gas, and perhaps coal. The gap's even bigger than the difference between fossil and alternative methods of making electricity.

Nah it's self correcting. When the cars stop moving, people start dying (after all, many of those vehicles are transporting things essential to the sustenance of our overcrowded cities), there's less need for freight and more resources to go around again.

Battery technology will never be at the point where we can go as far as we currently can in a small car, and along the way charge up in under a few minutes (unless people start gaining acceptance for sealed personal nuclear power supplies)...

So you say. People also said that gasoline cars would never be as reliable as a horse and wagon.

People don't want and cannot afford specialized cars just for commutes.

Horseshit. I drive a specialized car just for my commute. You think I *enjoy* driving an econobox? I do it becaause it's cost-effective. The family wagon gets used by my wife during the week, and by the family on the weekends.

When liquid fuel prices get high enough, then you better believe people will want to drive a specialty vehicle for commuting... and all their other driving.

I'm sure battery powered cars have a future but I just cannot see them as being the mainstream car that most people drive.

Obviously, I disagree. I think there are inherent disadvantages to fuel systems due to: (1) distribution and transportation costs (2) the relative inefficiency of small engines, and (3) the decreased dependence on a limited set of fuels.

With regards to (3), I think from a security standpoint, as well as a market efficiency standpoint, we're far better having a system where we can swap out power sources as needed. This gives us better long-term viability (for example, allowing us to more easily change to nuclear and renewable energy sources).

Obviously, I disagree. I think there are inherent disadvantages to fuel systems due to:(1) distribution and transportation costs(2) the relative inefficiency of small engines, and(3) the decreased dependence on a limited set of fuels.

Well, IIRC, gasoline is still the most energy dense way of running a car. I suppose you could rig some sort of overhead wire high-voltage system to run cars like buses, but otherwise we're pretty much stuck using gasoline, unless you think the 35 mile all-electric range (which

So you say. People also said that gasoline cars would never be as reliable as a horse and wagon.

That was obviously false based on the simple fact technology would refine the car into something more usable.

Claiming that we are even twenty years away from being able to hold the kind of energy density in batteries does not really look like a good bet, and foolhardy to insist that we have to input energy in the form of electricity - I'm a huge proponent for hydrogen cars which are electric cars, they are simply